Evolution of Critical Care Medicine in India is an epic tale of the gradual shift of the small private hospital initiation to a more organized, scientific and research-oriented specialty of Medicine. This paradigm has struggled for its acceptance and importance to establish a new specialty of Medicine in teaching institutions in India. The challenges of its establishment involve manpower, resource management, clinical inputs from other specialties and acceptance of new technologies in critical care medicine.

There is a huge gap in numbers of hospitals with critical care setups and trained doctors to take care of these critically ill patients. Imperative knowledge in the establishment of critical care medicine departments in teaching institutions in India is shaping up in a big way. This has led to very few medical colleges in India to establish critical care medicine departments.

Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth University, Puducherry, has always envisioned the university as an academic and patient care excellence in all dimensions. Starting the Department of Critical Care Medicine at Mahatma Gandhi Medical College is a nodal event to its academic commitments. The Department of Critical Care Medicine is the first to start in the state of Puducherry amongst the other medical colleges. The department has initiated the teaching and training by starting training courses in Critical Care Medicine at the hospital.